The state of the UofL Cardinal football team has come to a crossroads. With the squad’s first losing season since the team played at Old Cardinal Stadium, and a two year bowl drought despite being in a conference with up to six bids, the program is on the verge of defining itself for the foreseeable future.

First off, I am as big a Cardinal football fan as one can find. I was one of the 5,000 or so fans left on November 1, 1997 when East Carolina came to close out the hellhole that Cardinal Stadium had come to be and beat Chris Redman and Ibn Green by two touchdowns. I remember thinking that day, “There’s no way we’re going to fill up a 40,000 seat stadium.”

I could not have been more wrong. Over the next nine years, Louisville went to a bowl each season, switched conferences, won a BCS game, and had seven straight seasons of their quarterback winning the conference player of the year (C-USA and Big East). The way things were looking, it could not get any better for the beloved Cards.

Then Bobby Petrino went to the Falcons. You couldn’t blame him at that point. Despite signing a 10-year deal, here was the former coach at Carroll College getting a chance to run an offense his way with Michael Vick as the QB. It was an offensive coach’s dream. While we all know how that fiasco turned out, if Vick wasn’t convicted on illegal gambling and animal abuse charges, I guarantee Petrino would still be coaching a true contender in the NFC.

Louisville responded by hiring a coach from Tulsa, Steve Kragthorpe. He had modest success as the school was still trying to find a foothold in a Conference USA after leaving the WAC. Cardinal fans were fine with the hire because:

1. We just won the Orange Bowl nearly 20 years after the school seriously considered dropping football altogether, and…
2. See Note 1. Mr. Jurich could have hired Isaiah Thomas to coach the football team, and he still would have been as welcomed. What was there to worry about? We had Brian Brohm, Harry Douglas, a loaded linebacker corps led by transfer Willie Williams, and a pair of rising junior lineman in Adrian Grady and Earl Heyman, both of whom we all expected to be the next Elvis Dumervil.

Who could possibly screw that chemistry up? The Cards came out and threw 73 points on Murray State to start the 2007, but then Middle Tennessee State somehow came into the Oven and scored six touchdowns in a 58-42 shootout. Something was wrong, but hey, we still put up 58 points on the board. No worries. Or so we thought.

“Kentucky waits for rival to spring upset on top-10 team,” was the headline on ESPN.com the following week. The Cards lost to the Cats on an Andre Woodson pass to Steve Johnson with 28 seconds left. The table-turning game for football in the Commonwealth occurred that day. Louisville had their Dream Game in the 1983 NCAA Mideast Regional Basketball Final to claim that they belonged on the same level as Kentucky. Now, UK had their own Dream Game to even the gap in football.

Recruiting is the backbone for any successful program. Notre Dame can charm any Catholic young man to live out his dream, USC and UCLA can bring high school boys to their campus and the, ahem, scenery alone will have them verbally committing faster than an Usian Bolt 100 meter dash. Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State can arguably claim the proudest and most storied traditions in all of college sports.

Louisville has the Derby. And the occasional Ryder Cup. What I’m saying is that the Cards do not have the tradition, or intangible factors that make recruiting at schools like Miami, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas comparatively easy. Therefore, you have to recruit the kids who WANT to come to Louisville, and you have to TAKE the kids that settle for Louisville.

Coach Kragthorpe instituted a zero tolerance policy whose effect led to a number of players being off the team. While it is possible Williams, Rod Council, and others may have still gotten into serious trouble under the previous regime, most suspensions under Petrino were worse than getting kicked off the team. Much like a Rick Pitino 4 a.m. practice wake-up call, you would be too tired and too busy to get in trouble.

Injuries are normal and expected in college football. Over the last two seasons, we cannot really tell how injured the Cards have been. Because of a moratorium Coach Kragthorpe placed on ANY injury news, the fans (especially the ones in section 215, row GG) were left wondering, “Hmmm, I wonder why Victor Anderson isn’t playing today?” or “Hey, where has Josh Chichester been all game?”

What we do know? Coach Kragthorpe likes to have full-contact practices the day before the game. This is clearly not beneficial, and we can deduce that some injuries over the last two seasons have come out of these relatively unnecessary practices.

We were led to believe that the offense would be better this season. Offensive coordinator Charlie Stubbs, “The Mad Scientist,” was sent packing after year one and QB coach Jeff Brohm was promoted to the playcalling duties. However, do not confuse me with being a Brohm apologist. While I do think the plays were generally good calls with terrible execution, I believe he should have adjusted the types of calls to fit in with the talent level.

This all leads to the single-biggest detriment to the season, the Scott Long injury. He was right there, becoming the next Harry Douglas, yet suffered a season-ending leg injury. The Cards were never the same afterwards, despite keeping games with Cincinnati and West Virginia competitive at the half.

We now return to my original point of the football program being at a crossroads. I think the best decision for the future of the Cardinal program is for Coach Kragthorpe to go. I’m sure he’s a tremendous person, and he seems like a great guy to watch a game with, but I do not think he is the right man to be the UofL football coach.

There are a number of reasons I believe this. First, as I stated earlier, the cupboard was not bare when he inherited the program. He had a Heisman Trophy contender with an eventual starting NFL receiver. Not earning a bowl bid for the first time since the stadium opened was forgivable for one season, but certainly not this year.

Second, it has already been proclaimed by Mr. Jurich that 2008 and 2009 were both going to be rebuilding seasons. You cannot give Coach Kragthorpe a third season without fully intending to give him a fourth. With non-conference games next year at Kentucky and BCS-bound Utah, combined with another Big East schedule, having a winning record in 2009 is not likely at all. By bringing in a new coach who can capture local talent and not rely on junior college transfers, he can struggle as expected in ’09 and hit the ground running for a push in 2010.

Third, Kragrthorpe’s demeanor on the sidelines is frustrating. He is way too calm for a football coach. I like having a coach show a little emotion. Nothing drove this point home more than the Friday after Thanksgiving. Sitting at home watching the LSU/Ole Miss game in HD, I saw Bobby Petrino go to war for his team. Along with that, he had the cajones to call a 25-yard fade route jump ball on fourth-and-one to win the game. When calls don’t go Kragthorpe’s way, it’s like they don’t even bother him. All we the fans were looking for was some sign to let us know you were ready to fight for your team.

Will I continue watching the games and rooting the Cards on? You better believe it! Few things beat Paul Rodgers calling a dramatic scoring play, and something still has to hold us all over during basketball recruiting season. However, for the average fan, there is only one way to make sure your message is heard by Mr. Jurich. That is through the pocketbook.

Just this week, various members of my family cancelled eight sets of UofL football season tickets because of the state of the program. According to the response column in today’s Courier-Journal, I am certain they are not the only ones. Most of these ticket accounts date back to the mid-1980’s, when my whole family had tickets in the old Crunch Zone. My earliest memories of football came watching very bad UofL football teams try and compete, and I loved it. Sure the results were hardly positive, but expectations were nonexistent.

I tend to think back to those games. I remember begging my dad on that November day in 1997, after he had picked up an extra two tickets with a gas fill-up at Thornton’s that Saturday morning. Times have changed, and expectations have heightened. We have seen the depths of UofL football, as well as the greatness it can achieve. All actions (or lack of) have consequences, and it has come to the point where the lack of good decisions by Coach Kragthorpe need to have the consequences of bringing someone new in. If not for anything else, a new coach could restore the hope of Cardinal football, a hope that has been washed away in a span of 23 short months.